They will have a live lie busters to accommodate the new lies Libertas will produce as time goes on.

Fight the Lies

The Irish people deserve an honest debate on this Treaty, we promise that our campaign will base all our arguments on the facts, and will reference all our statements.

We don’t believe in attacking people personally, but we have zero tolerance for anyone who lies to the Irish people in this campaign. When people make false statements, we will respond immediately with the truth

LIE: EU laws are made by unelected elites.

THE TRUTH: Every EU law has to be approved by either the people’s directly elected MEPs, or by the elected government of the member states. That means no law can be passed without approval by your elected representatives. The Treaty increases the Parliament’s power further.

LIE: The EU wants to introduce conscription in Ireland.

THE TRUTH: There is no EU army, and there is no move toward conscription. Very few countries have conscription in their national armies, and many of them are phasing it out.Furthermore, close to one fifth of EU countries are neutral states, like Ireland.

EUROPE IS “the best friend Ireland ever had”, according to a new pro-Lisbon campaign group launched in Dublin yesterday.

Calling itself Generation Yes, the organisation of college students and graduates was armed with the slogan “EU – a safe harbour in the financial storm” aimed at encouraging Ireland’s youth to vote Yes in a future referendum on the treaty.

Using new media options like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, text messaging and its own website www.generationyes.ie, the group says it will “outline really clear and understandable” explanations of the treaty and its benefits.

They plan to campaign on the streets, on campuses and to support other pro-treaty groups. Their press release highlights a Millward Brown IMS poll finding that of the 59 per cent of 25- to 34-year-olds who voted No last time, 42 per cent did so due to a “lack of knowledge or understanding”.

They also want the Government to “run the referendum over two days at the weekend” which would suit students better, according to campaign director Andrew Byrne, a former Trinity College students’ union president.

He said the campaign was “all just friends of ours” who were frustrated by the failure of politicians to properly explain the treaty the last time, or to campaign effectively, so they decided “we’ll do it ourselves”.

They recently started a Facebook page “and we have more than 800 members on that. I think Declan Ganley only has about 100,” he says of the Libertas anti-treaty campaigner.

“We’re a grassroots movement. We’re independent,” he insists, although he is a member of the Green Party. Hazel Nolan a UCC student and a member of the Labour Party, was involved with the Alliance for Europe in last year’s campaign.

“I think young people are taking it more seriously this time,” she says. Both insist they have no personal political ambition.

“I’m emigrating next year to America” says Mr Byrne, who will study in Chicago.

He stresses that Lisbon “is too important to leave it to the politicians” and he insists “we’re not funded by anybody”, although they are seeking funds through their website and “we’ll run table quizzes after the launch”. This campaign “is as genuine as it comes”, he says, estimating it will cost “a few thousand euro”.

About 20 young people attended the launch on Merrion Square, the boys wearing white T-shirts with the slogan “Yes, Yes, Yes”. Some of the girls wore pink T-shirts with the legend: “I only kiss boys who say Yes”, while other campaign members refused to wear the “chauvinistic” shirts. The T-shirt legend is meant to be humorous and to show “we’re not taking ourselves too seriously,” says the campaign director, but he concedes it may change.

4 comments:

I thought this was a well informed website. As is obvious even from the Irish Times article, these are all members of political parties. As if college students are so exercised about Lisbon they want to organise and campaign.

maybe you should undertake an investigation into where their funds come from. probably FG/Lab/Greens/FF. This lot are just doing what Daddy says or he'll take away their Visa and then what will they do??

The thought did cross my mind Linda but sometimes I post stories purely because I know that Libertas read the site every morning froim Brussles and Rivada/Libertas fronm Tuam Co. Galway and these stories irritate them

I did note that the "activists" tend to be on the well fed side but hey it is obvious to you and it is obvious to me.

What I do want is all these party workers and others to make sure they go out and vote on June 5 and make sure they flatten Libertas. Hopefully then my work will be done. However some of them may be politically ambitious in their own right.

My enemy's enemy is my friend, I think i will take of the editorial on this and leave the articlePK is allowed have a little fun at the exspence of the Liberats Internes who post commented here until I informed Anita Kelly that unless they linked back to Libertas.eu I would stop publishing their comments. Amazingly they stopped posting any comments.....Between libertas and the EU parliamnet and Commission this blog is 39,000 most popular in Belgium .